A system for the dynamic provisioning, presentation and measurement of multimedia content having a user interface that is simple, visual, hierarchical, contextual and scalable utilizing an identical viewer experience across content devices and platforms including, but not limited to, televisions (TV), personal computers (PC), personal digital assistants (PDA) and cell phones.
Multimedia content choices available to consumers have been increasing at an explosive rate over the past few years. Examples of such rapidly increasing choices include: (i) the number of broadcast television channels expanding from just over 60 channels at the beginning of the 1990s to well over 300 channel choices in this past year of 2003; (ii) the number of on-demand hours of programming content being offered by cable operators that is predicted to grow from an average of 1,500 hours at the beginning of 2004 to well over 10,000 hours by the end of 2004; and (iii) the increased penetration of broadband connections in consumers' homes that provide immediate access to vast arrays of video and audio selections from hundreds of thousands of content providers. These are just a few examples of the vast amount of multimedia choices consumers must make in their daily lives. As multimedia content offerings increase, so does the need for providing a more efficient and elegant navigation mechanism for the vast array of multimedia choices available.
Until now, one means of navigating through multimedia content has been through an electronic programming guide, or “EPG.” The current generation of EPGs incorporates a grid of textual line items to represent multimedia content. These text-grids were primarily developed to present a limited number of broadcast television channels to viewers and the designers did not contemplate an effective presentation paradigm for hundreds of broadcast channel choices and tens of thousands of hours of on-demand entertainment. In addition, due to the textual (rather than image-based) nature of today's EPGs, multimedia content providers are not obtaining the promotional capabilities they need to stimulate the take-rate levels required to make their paid entertainment services successful. As a result, the need has arisen for an improved multimedia navigation paradigm—one that is as much efficient and scalable as it is enjoyable and entertaining.
Another reason that the current state of the art is deficient is that it does not accommodate the way that the human brain processes multimedia choice data. Brain research has determined that the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat of language and processes sensory and abstract data in a logical and sequential order, while the right hemisphere is more visual and processes sensory and abstract data intuitively, emotionally, and randomly. Viewing television is primarily a right-brain experience—highly visual and immersive. However, selecting what to watch is, for the most part, a unilateral left-brain activity—sequential, logical, and linear. This split-brain conflict is resolved either by evaluating programming schedules and content descriptions (left-brain) or by channel “surfing”—streaming a series of rapidly changing images until a “stop and investigate” association is made (right-brain.) The left-brain interprets each potential viewing experience by theme preference, viewing time commitment, program tile recognition, cast composition, critical review, and possibly the tastes of other viewers in the room. The result of this decision-making is then handed off to the right brain as being “the best thing to watch.”
If the right-brain can engage and associate with the material, the viewer watches. If not, the left-brain takes over and the process is repeated. When the left-brain tires of trying to please the right-brain, it “opts out” of the process and lets the right-brain “channel surf” until an intuitive association is made with an image, situation, or music. Curiously, this is what the right-brain wanted all along. Imposing logical, linear, decision-making on right-brain instincts produces confusion. The majority of entertainment seeking people are unable to appreciate that their intuitive, associative abilities are essential to enjoy the experiences they crave.
A system and method has previously been disclosed for navigating a complex structure at an interactive user station. The complex structure includes a plurality of nodes and each node includes at least one presentation element. The interactive user station includes a processor, a memory, and a presentation device. The presentation device includes a plurality of presentation cells arranged in an array, such as a 3×3 matrix of cells. The method disclosed includes providing at least one presentation element associated with a first node at the presentation cells. The method further includes receiving a signal at the processor indicating a user selection of a presentation cell. In addition, the method includes the step of identifying a second node based on the selected presentation cell. The method finally includes the step of presenting at least one presentation element associated with the second node at the presentation device. That system and method has many deficiencies, including being limited to non-dynamic presentations in a kiosk-type environment.
Additional deficiencies of such prior art systems include: (i) no configurability through a system that enables the creation of an N×M hierarchical matrix of multimedia display cells and its associated navigational schema; (ii) no ability to schedule multiple differing presentations of content through a system; (iii) no ability to record and store N×M hierarchical matrix navigational and multimedia content consumption statistics; and (iv) no navigation bar that present the users with useful options such as help and error functions, multimedia controls and dynamic media asset information. In addition, such prior art systems lack (i) transitional animations to give the user a sense of spatial context; (ii) the ability to dynamically provision content within a display cell or N×M matrix of display cells; (iii) a mechanism for drawing the attention of the user to the content choice being made through the use of the duotone and full-color swappable images that are displayed within a display cell in mutual exclusion to each other upon an input device focal event (i.e., display cell obtains focus and full color image is displayed, display cell loses focus and duotone image is displayed); and (iv) expanding and contracting display cells that form the viewport for the multimedia asset playlist in a contextual manner depending upon the location of the display cell chosen within an N×M matrix. Furthermore, prior art user interface systems have no transitional animations utilized for advertising purposes (e.g., company logos and product trademarks), and do not provide the capability for full screen display of multimedia content when so desired by the user.
Accordingly, what is needed and heretofore unavailable is a multimedia content interface system that eliminates the split-brained conflict by presenting programming and navigation choices as engaging right-brain entertainment activity. Furthermore, there has been a long-felt need for an improved multimedia navigation system that is efficient and scalable with enhancements that address the deficiencies discussed above.